The Stepmother

  “Everything all right?” I asked, when she listened worriedly to a particularly long one.

  “My friend’s just been dumped,” she said.

  I grimaced.

  The phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. Eventually, Amber switched it off.

  WE HAD A FABULOUS TIME. First there were a couple of versions of Caspar and Amber’s song for James, with the girls on percussion and chorus duties. Then, bitten by the bug, we sat down with sandwiches and made a list of James’s favorite songs and, within seconds, Carlos had summoned the words and music from his computer for Amber to do a grand karaoke. The little ones did a version of “Do Re Mi,” which was hilarious. They lacked their sister’s sound, but their giggles, chatter, and interruptions made something I knew James would treasure forever. Even Carlos, who lived his life with one eye on the clock, forgot the time.

  It was Maddy’s watery-eyed yawn that made me glance at my watch. Somehow it was nearly six.

  Carlos got kisses from all of the girls and a manly handshake from Caspar.

  I took my troupe outside. As ever, the younger two chatted excitedly about moments in the day that had set firm in their memory, but for once Amber joined in: “Do you remember, Tessa, when Carlos…”

  “And, Tessa, what about when…”

  “Tessa, wasn’t Caspar brilliant?”

  Tessa this, Tessa that…I absolutely loved it. But, more than anything, I loved it when we reached the car and Amber pushed the front seat forward for her sisters to climb in, then straightened. “Thank you, Tessa. That was one of the most brilliant things I’ve ever done.”

  I noticed a thin streak of jet fuel cross the indigo sky high above us and thought of James, still thirty-five thousand feet above sea level. Down here on earth things were changing, and he hadn’t even arrived in Los Angeles.

  “My pleasure,” I said. “Right, you lot, budge up. We’ve got to drop Caspar at the station.”

  “Can’t he come with us?” asked Amber.

  “No room. Sorry.”

  She and Caspar tried to hide their disappointment. I tossed an idea around my head. “You could get the train back together as long as you come straight home from the station.”

  They promised. It was only forty minutes on the train from Epsom station. They would probably be home before we were. “If you get there first, put the pasta on. I made a Bolognese sauce earlier. It’s in the fridge and just needs heating up.”

  “You sound like Mum,” said Caspar.

  I smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  ACTUALLY, THEY WEREN’T HOME BEFORE us, but the water had only just started to boil when I heard their voices outside the front door. I knew James was due to land pretty soon and would want to talk to his daughters as soon as he was off the airplane. Maddy, Lulu, and I had spent most of the journey concocting a plausible alternative story for our day, which meant that Caspar had been effortlessly edited from the proceedings.

  We listened to the unpolished cut of our wedding CD. Carlos was planning to work a little of his magic on it, but I didn’t want the girls to sound like the Bonne Belles or any of the other manufactured bands out there: I wanted them to sound like three kids having fun in a recording studio. And they did.

  We were sitting down in the kitchen for spag Bol when the phone rang. Amber picked it up. “Hello?” She smiled. “It’s Daddy! Hi! How was your flight? Is it hot? Have you seen any famous people?…Oh.” She held the phone away from her face. “He’s just getting off the plane.” She switched to loudspeaker and placed the phone in the middle of the table.

  “Hi, everyone,” said James.

  “Hi, Daddy,” the girls chorused.

  “Hi, Tessa.”

  “Hello, my love. I’m so glad you’ve arrived safely.”

  “I miss you all horribly.”

  “Us too,” I said. Meaning me. I miss you. Come home.

  “So, what have you girls been doing?”

  “Zoo.”

  “Playground.”

  “Cinema.”

  They spoke simultaneously then burst out laughing.

  “Wow, busy day,” said James.

  “Not all at the same time,” said Maddy.

  “I should think not. You all right, Tessa? The minxes haven’t worn you out?”

  “I’m not quite ready for the knacker’s yard yet, thanks. Actually we’ve had a great day.”

  The girls agreed loudly. I knew James would be excited to hear their happy voices.

  “Tessa, can I have a word with you off speakerphone?” asked James.

  Amber looked worried. I kept it light, though my heart was suddenly beating louder. That was not the reaction I’d been expecting. “Sure,” I said brightly. I picked up the phone and stood up.

  “Had a few calls from Bea,” said James.

  Man, he hadn’t even got off the plane! “Oh—everything okay?”

  “I don’t know. She said she hadn’t heard from anyone all day.”

  I paused, treading carefully, not wanting to alert Amber to any danger. “I didn’t realize that was necessary.”

  “Well, the girls usually put in a call at some point.”

  “Ah, well,” I said, forcing a smile. “We haven’t stopped all day.”

  “She tried Amber’s phone and got no answer. She sounded very worried.” I remembered the constant buzzing from Amber’s pocket, the long messages, the texts. Clearly, Bea didn’t trust me to look after her children. Well, if we needed to clock in, I should have been told. “Don’t know who made more noise in the zoo, the monkeys or the girls. We couldn’t hear a thing. It was such a busy day. We’re all knackered.”

  “What are you talking about? Could you just call her?”

  “Why don’t you?” I said, feeling as though I was stating the obvious.

  “It’s very expensive. Can’t you just—”

  I ignored his last comment and interrupted: “I know it’s a bit late, the girls are off to bed in a minute. Amber and I are going to stay up and watch a movie.”

  “What? Oh, damn it, I’ve got to get off the phone. I’m at Customs.”

  “Okay,” I said. I held up the phone. “Say good-bye to Daddy.” They did. I didn’t. I returned to the table and finished my spaghetti. Suddenly, I felt an insatiable need for a large glass of red wine, but knew better than to relax before lights-out.

  “Zoo, playground, cinema,” I said. “Honestly, you lot are terrible at fibbing. I can’t believe your dad fell for it.” While I handed yogurts around, I picked up the phone again. “Do you want to call Mummy and say good night?” I asked, as if the thought had just occurred to me. The younger ones nodded, then glanced at Amber. Something silent passed between them, but, not knowing the secret way of sisters, I couldn’t decipher the code. “She’ll probably have gone out by now,” said Amber.

  “Oh. Okay.” Where? I wondered. And with whom?

  “Yeah, she usually goes out with friends when we’re not there.” Amber peeled back the lid of her yogurt.

  “What about leaving a message? Or, if you want, you could call her on her mobile? She might like to hear from you.”

  Amber stirred her yogurt intently. “We don’t usually call,” she said. I knew Amber was lying. So did the girls. They became as intent on their plates as their sister. I could see the tension in Amber’s body. I thought I understood why. Fibbing to Daddy was probably easier than lying to her mother about not seeing Caspar. I realized I had put her in a difficult position.

  “I’ll sort it out, Amber. Okay?”

  She didn’t respond.

  “I promise.”

  Caspar was watching Amber as closely as I was. She didn’t take her eyes off the yogurt, but I could have sworn the tension I saw in her shoulders took on a furious form. Afraid it would ricochet back on me, I changed the subject.

  I gave Maddy and Lulu a quick bath. They called home, but Amber was right: Bea had gone out. They left a sweet good-night message, which I tried not to listen to, be moved
by, or jealous of. I failed on all three counts. But at least I was aware I was failing and told myself I was being foolish. Understanding the failure of James and Bea’s marriage meant I no longer feared it. It wasn’t very nice of me, but now that the perfect Bea Frazier had slipped off her pedestal, we were on a more equal footing.

  By the time I came downstairs, Amber and Caspar had waded through the ads, previews, and warnings on the DVD and were waiting to start the film. I poured myself a glass of wine and sat in the armchair, leaving them sitting close together on the sofa. I had little interest in the film they had chosen on their way back from the tube station, and would happily have got into a bath with my wine and a book, but I wasn’t going to leave the two unattended. I had to be able to look James in the eye and tell him nothing had happened on my watch.

  About twenty minutes into the film, Amber offered to make peppermint tea. Caspar paused the film, and while she was out of the room, we stuck to the safe topic of his family. When we found ourselves on the subject of his sister’s latest method of disruption, holding her breath until she went purple, I knew we’d been chatting for a while, because it’s a subject he prefers to avoid. We thought the same thing at the same time. Now what?

  “I’ll go,” said Caspar.

  “No. I will.”

  Amber wasn’t in the kitchen and the kettle had long boiled. I looked in the downstairs loo. She wasn’t there. It’s a tiny cubicle under the stairs, and I was about to close the door behind me when something stopped me. A memory. A smell. Something. It was too brief to catch, but I looked around the room again, trying to locate it again. Caspar was on the threshold, watching me. I waved him back to the living room. Her bedroom was empty, so I tried the bathroom. It was locked. I knocked.

  “Coming,” said Amber quickly.

  “You okay?”

  “Mum called. Sorry. Start the film without me.”

  I would have, except I knew that Amber’s phone was recharging next to the kettle in the kitchen, because I’d just seen it. And if she had been chatting to her mother, we’d have heard her. The loo flushed and the tap ran. I waited. A few moments later I heard the loo flush again. Still Amber didn’t come out. I went back downstairs, and as I passed the loo, I looked in again. It wasn’t the smell that had triggered the memory. The water was pink. I knew what pink water meant. Any girl of a certain age does. It means blood.

  “Hey, Caspar, make tea, would you? Bea called.” I shouted.

  His forehead creased. “Oh, God, Amber okay?”

  “Just catching up on the day.”

  I could see he didn’t believe me, but I didn’t pursue it. I went up to my room. I had made one shelf of the shower-room cabinet my own. I opened it and looked through my belongings. Nothing suitable for a fourteen-year-old girl. I returned to the corridor and knocked again. “Can I come in?” I asked.

  Amber emerged, closing the door behind her quickly. She’d changed. “Fancied getting into something more comfortable,” she said.

  “Listen,” I whispered, “I know I’m the last person in the world you probably want to talk to about this, but I can help.”

  She frowned.

  “Have you got your period?”

  She looked painfully embarrassed but she didn’t deny it.

  “Look, I spent months trying to put those bloody Lil-lets in when I first had periods and I couldn’t do it. It used to make me cry, trying to follow those hideous diagrams. Feet up on the loo, pants around my ankles. I fell over once and nearly knocked myself out.”

  I put my arm around her shoulders and led her to her room. “The small Tampax are much easier in the beginning, because the applicator does the work for you. Or good old-fashioned sanitary pads will do the job.”

  I could see her swallow her shame and try to be the big girl she wanted to be. “But the boxes are so big,” she said.

  That was true. There was no hiding a bag of pads. “So what have you been using?”

  Amber gazed at the floor. “Loo paper.”

  “Oh, sweetie. How long for?”

  She gulped. “This is my second. I didn’t know when it was coming. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to buy them, but there was such a big choice and there were boys in the drugstore…”

  “Couldn’t your mum get them for you?” I asked. Now she looked like she was about to cry. I rushed on. “You know what? Stupid as it is, I still feel awkward buying them. Especially since I don’t buy the smallest ones anymore. There’s always a man on the counter when I go, guaranteed. Thank God for online shopping, frankly. Do you want me to wash some stuff? Those are your favorite jeans.”

  The change of direction caught her off-guard and she nodded. Poor thing. Accidents like that are horrid.

  “Is it on the sofa? Is that how you know?” she asked.

  “God, no. I know because I know, and when it happens to Lulu, you’ll know immediately too. That’s the sisterhood, my friend. We look out for one another.”

  Amber brushed away an imagined tear. “Thanks, Tessa.”

  “You go downstairs. Caspar’s making tea. I’m going to the corner shop to get some biscuits for us all.”

  “We’ve got some.”

  “I know that, but Caspar doesn’t and he needn’t know why I’m doing a bit of late-night shopping.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t you worry, I’ll find something. Start watching the film.”

  “What about you?” asked Amber.

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  “I’ll tell you what happens.”

  Caspar didn’t even notice that Amber had changed, which made me smile to myself. He did, however, have a fairly hefty order for my shop run—drinks, sweets, chocolate. Honestly, I’d no idea where that boy put it.

  I forgot my keys intentionally so Amber had to let me in. I passed her a bag. A few minutes later, she was back on the sofa, the goodies on a tray, tucking into some Maltesers. She gave me a surreptitious wink, which I held to my heart and hugged.

  Feeling confident that I could now leave her and Caspar alone, I put on a wash, put away the washing-up, and laid breakfast for the morning, as I had seen Fran do. I booked a cab to take Caspar home at ten-thirty and took myself upstairs to bed. I kissed him good-night, as I usually do, then hesitated.

  Amber took the difficulty out of the situation and stood up. “Thanks for a great day,” she said, kissing my cheek. “And everything.”

  It was the first time she’d kissed me, and I was startled by how happy it made me feel. I wanted to hug her and tell her that everything would be fine, but instead I said good night and went upstairs. I forced my eyes to stay open until I heard her close and lock the front door, take herself upstairs, clean her teeth, and go to her room. If she stayed up all night texting Caspar, fine. As far as I was concerned, my charges were at home, safe. I closed my eyes and slept.

  THE RINGING WAS A DISTANT bell calling me to church. I was late and the hem of my wedding dress was caught in the jaws of a digger. I yanked it free but found I couldn’t run. “Coming,” I wanted to call, but I couldn’t speak, either. The ringing continued.

  I woke up enough to realize I couldn’t run or speak because I was asleep. Then I reached the lid of sleep and discovered I was in bed and it was the phone ringing, not the bells of St. Clement’s.

  I picked it up. “James?”

  “Tessa, darling, it’s Mum.”

  I squinted at my watch but couldn’t see the time. It was dark in the room except for the orange glow that crept in at either side of the curtain. “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know, late, early.” I heard my mother take a deep breath. “It’s the middle of the night.”

  I burst through the surface, finally awake. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m so sorry to—”

  “Mum, what’s wrong? Where’s Dad? Is he all right?”

  “He’s fishing.”

  Of course. He was on the Isle of Skye with Peter, bonding over maggots. “What’s
happened?”

  “Well, the thing is…” She paused. “I fell asleep in front of the telly—”

  “Mummy, what’s happened?”

  “I woke up and—oh, hell, Tessa, don’t panic but—”

  “Mum!”

  “I can’t see.”

  I swore silently. “Where are you?”

  “Well, I tried to get to bed…”

  I held my breath.

  “I’m so sorry, darling, I’m—I’ve knocked all the vases off the table.”

  “What vases? Are you all right? Are you cut?”

  “No, no, no—well, only slightly. You see, I was cleaning them and, well, there’s broken glass everywhere and now I’m stuck.”

  “Let me call an ambulance.”

  “No. This isn’t life-threatening.”

  “You’re surrounded by shards of glass and you can’t see.”

  “Please, sweet Tessa, you have a key. It won’t take you long. They’ll have to knock down the door otherwise.”

  My mother would rather chew off her own leg than end up in a hospital before time. Though what “time” was, I no longer knew. But she was my mother, and her system worked for her. Who was I to take that away? “I’m leaving now,” I said.

  I SHOOK AMBER AWAKE. SHE stared at me from behind a dream.

  “I’m so sorry, I’ve got to get you home,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “My mother isn’t well. I’ve got to go and help her.”

  “My mother?”

  “No, mine.” I switched on the bedside light. She squinted at me. “I have to go to Oxford. Now. Can you help me get the girls into the car?”

  “I’ll get dressed,” said Amber, awake—oh, to be young.

  I started James’s car and turned the heaters on. I chose his because it had four doors and it was easier to get the sleeping girls into and out of. I ran upstairs, picked Maddy up, and, without waking her, had her in the car, belted and under a blanket. Lulu woke, but I took her pillow and rabbit with her, and she was asleep again by the time I’d locked the front door.